


all the feeling and the rain

by sexonastick



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, OT3, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-01 00:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2753234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexonastick/pseuds/sexonastick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three paths converge in Styria, from very different places, to become something new.</p><p>Like light through a prism turns into a rainbow, but just imagine that the red line is reeeeeally big and tall and sometimes carries the brooding black one.</p><p>It's like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foolish Children

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionsenpai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionsenpai/gifts).



> I tried about four times to do your roommate swap prompt, but none of my attempts really felt right, and then this started happening.
> 
> I hope you like it anyway. Happy Yuletide! :)
> 
> \--
> 
> If you'd like to rec on tumblr, [please reblog this post](http://perpetuallyfive.tumblr.com/post/106811012820/fic-all-the-feeling-and-the-rain). (Yeah, that's me! Hi.)

*

Carmilla used to make wreaths out of flowers to wear in her hair, playing in the grass until she was found out. Then she would be scolded, both for ruining her dress and not acting at all like a proper lady. 

The flowers were taken away from her, crushed underfoot. 

She could have cried, watching their petals fall away. She even protested, once or twice, mewling in a girlish voice that must have seemed quite small and petty. "You're hurting them!" 

"They're already dead, don't you see?" the servants would scold, straightening her dress and her shoulders, telling her to stand up properly; "Foolish girl."

She had been very foolish when she was young.

It's true.

* 

She used to believe in daydreams and romance. She liked watching the stars at night, stuck up in the sky like drops of paint on a darkened canvas, imagining the places they might one day guide her. 

"Don't be so foolish, child," the servants would scold, tugging her nightgown over her head roughly so that it pinched. "Go to bed now, like your mother insists."

There were so many threats in those early days, and instructions too. Sit up straight, mind your manners, bite your tongue. Go to bed now, rise early, speak only when called to. Always with the threat of mother's anger.

Always the unspoken promise that she might come.

She seldom did, however terrible the offense. It was seldom enough to distract mother from the important planning of balls or the running of their estate.

Alas.

Children born to influence seldom hear their own bedtime stories.

*

But as she grew older, the servants learned to stop calling her such things. A child might be corrected, yes, but a young woman, daughter of a count, knows how to play the game. Most especially, she could win. She kept the house in line when her parents were away, and relished the power it gave her. Minor corrections of her own, her tone clipped so precisely, or sometimes simple dismissal by ignoring them completely. Both could do the trick.

Remind a person carefully (with calculation) that they are beneath your notice, and see just how profoundly it effects them. Even animals crave affection. Or attention, at least.

We are all animals in the end. 

*

And it does end. For all of us.

* 

What she remembers most was the stars. They burned brighter after death. 

How strange. 

Was it the heavens that had changed, now that she knew them to most likely be empty -- all she had believed before a lie -- or was it her? Perhaps her eyes were different. Perhaps every aspect of her biology had transformed into something new and much more powerful. 

She felt so very strong. 

"Come," the woman said, draped in darkness, with her voice as vast as the night. "We will walk the centuries, you and I." 

The stars were so very bright, but the woman's eyes were sharper. 

"Yes," was all Mircalla could think to say. 

Little more than a breathe, or perhaps a prayer.

Though she would have no need for either anymore. 

* 

They did not kill the servants. 

Not her own, at least. 

*

But she was a wreck that first night. 

Dress in tatters, blood still weeping from an open wound. Dazed and disheveled, and clutching her new mother's hand. She held it so tight, their heartbeats might have joined as one. She expects they both would have been pounding, but.

That part of her life was over now.

(If you could call any aspect of what comes next "living.")

Kneeling in the dark, mother's fingers tangled in her hair and the body of a poor servant girl sprawled in her lap, twisted and broken, but still twitching as it finally slowed.

They make sounds when they're dying. Most people do.

Such mewling little animals noises. Calls for help. Signs of distress. 

In her own hunger, in desperation on this first night, she sank her fangs so deeply into the girl's throat that her vocal cords were severed. It was so eerily silent, though she didn't know to find it unusual at the time. Not yet.

But mother laughed, her voice reverberating in the halls. "Quite the ferocious beast, aren't you?" The blood felt warm as mother dragged it across her temple with gentle fingertips, stroking the skin, threading trails of red through her hair. "Drink deep, kitten. There's plenty more left."

* 

It's embarrassing. 

A memory mother calls to mind whenever she wishes to humiliate her, which is often enough.

Teenage girls can be so rebellious, even after a couple hundred years. 

They must be kept in their place. 

_"For your own good,"_ Mamma says.

*

There would be other nights, of course, and other deaths. Hundreds? Or could it be thousands? You lose track somewhat over the years. Faces all start to blend together, sunken cheekbones and pale flesh. 

They grow cold so quickly. 

Do you know what happens to a human body once the soul leaves it behind? 

There are worse places to waste away than buried beneath the soil.

"Millarca, darling…" 

Mothers voice is like an endless pit under the sea, or some kind of creature that crawls up from inside it.

She looks up from her reading, and tries to hide the impatience from her face. The time will come again soon. Their ritual. She knows better than to risk her mother's displeasure. "Yes, Mamma."

"Shouldn't you practice your waltzing?"

This is a cruel joke, she is certain. She's being toyed with.

But perhaps it's refreshing to remember that mother has a sense of humor.

"Yes." Her smile is strained, and she is certain it fools no one, although that may not matter. At least she's trying. Perhaps these small gestures are the point. Minor humiliations and concessions. "Of course."

Her dress rustles when she moves to leave. She has not yet learned to move silently and swiftly, a fact mother cannot help but notice, looking up with a disapproving frown, her mouth a thin line. 

But Carmilla turns away. 

Pretends not to notice.

*

The first time Carmilla questions an order from her mother, she is locked alone in a windowless room for two months.

It's strange. 

Time is nothing to a vampire. Just a small thing. Fleeting.

But in such darkness, black as a pit, all she can think of is the missing stars. 

* 

The game is easy. It could almost be fun, in its way. 

She is tiny and petite, fair skinned and beautiful. She will always be that way now. Mamma had chosen wisely. She looks especially beautiful underneath the moonlight, so many of them say so. 

They say so many things. Share their hearts with her, and she smiles and whispers back to them, so many secrets of her own, as if she has a heart like theirs, still beating. 

None of this is true. 

These perfect, naive girls with their families and futures still waiting for them, all become like her eventually, every one. Trapped in time, forever displaced. Forever young. 

Or dead. Perhaps they are all simply dead. 

*

(After Ell, she will hope that they are. Only memories and dust.)

*

What must that be like, to die at last? She wonders.

She knows enough of what the body feels like from the outside as it ends. There is so much movement, resistance, followed by a sudden stillness as the soul departs. 

But what about the rest? Where does it go?

And should such things matter to one who almost certainly lost her own heart and soul centuries ago? 

Left somewhere, perhaps, in the soil of her homeland. 

Maybe she will look for it on the next pilgrimage back. Bury her fingertips into the soil.

Plunge deep and see what comes up after.

* 

The roads that lead through what once was simply Styria have begun to change. There was a time when she knew every dip and turn, but a kind and foolish man in the village says there will be cobblestone soon. 

"We are more than simple country folk here," he says, and Mamma laughs. 

Progress, she says, will be their dearest friend. As superstition makes way for skepticism, people become less afraid of the things they ought to dread. Like fire makes mankind believe they should not fear the night, so too will the coming changes. 

"How can you know?"

Carmilla doesn't mean for disdain to show in her voice, or boredom either. There is only meant to be careful neutrality, or sometimes deference, but the look mother gives her shows she has been caught out. 

"I know a great many things." Mamma's hands are in her hair again, thumb grazing down her cheek. "Much more than an impudent child, darling. You should know that by now."

So many of the things she knows come from mother. That is how it's meant to be. 

She goes where Mamma takes her, lives as Mamma tells her. Tells the lies she's meant to say. Lures the girls she's told to take. 

The only other source of knowledge comes from books, and for that she is ravenous. It is almost a joke, isn't it, to hunger for words nearly as much as she hungers for blood. 

God, the blood.

*

One beautiful thing about Ell was her veins. Every part of her was lovely, of course. Her mouth, especially. 

She had liked Ell's mouth very much, especially its taste. 

But when they lie still together in bed, the poor girl's heartbeat seems so loud that it fills the room. 

And there, just beneath the skin, tender and nearly exposed, all those precious veins drawing blood right back to that source. The center of life. The heart where whatever affection she might have for Carmilla is supposed to be housed. 

It seems impossible really, but there it all is, dragging along the same pulse she can feel where their hands clutch together beneath the sheets. There it all is, just inches away from the taking. 

But safe, still. 

She doesn't care to drink. She chooses not to.

*

With Ell, Carmilla learns of choice. Her own choices, for the first time in her life.

Perhaps also the last.

*

For Mamma was right. She knew a great many things more than Carmilla, like how to turn a person's heart.

Or what they might see when looking at a beast. 

How to make them scream.

Ell screams so much as she is dragged away, wide-eyed and terrified, but Carmilla's heart is breaking. She had not even known she had one still, but it is too late now, it is gone. Emptied from her chest.

Defeated and still, she listens to the screams growing further and further away, until there is only the silence and mother's hands twisted in her hair.

She pulls, sharply, and Carmilla looks up at her. "I should kill you, you know. For what you've done. Betraying me." Her kisses taste like blood -- Ell's blood -- and for once Carmilla does not crave the taste. Her stomach churns, twisting sharply. "I love you so much, darling."

*

Several hands lift her up before lowering her into a coffin filled with blood, and she does not resist. What would she be fighting for? Where would she go? The blood is warm and stinks like the deaths of thousands. Maybe more. 

"I wish you weren't making me do this."

Her mother's hands are soaked up to the elbow, like delicate evening gloves, all in red.

She does not ask where the blood came from, and she does not ask to be let free. She does not want anything from this woman, not anymore, except perhaps for death. 

"Mamma…"

Even Carmilla is surprised by how child-like her voice sounds, even in her own head. How frightened. 

She didn't realize she was afraid until she heard its bitter taste on her own tongue.

"Hush now, my darling girl." The hands are on her shoulders now, wrenching lower, pushing her down. "… and sleep." 

Lower. 

The blood is rising.

It's past her head, and all she can see is wet and red, like the hollowed out insides of a person, pulsing and terrible.

She feels the air shifting above, and the coffin must be sealed. Darkness is all that remains.

*

Except for the memories.

The sounds of the screaming. 

She tries to remember the exact feeling of Ell's kiss, but the only thing she tastes is blood. 

*

Vampires cannot drown, but they can know fear. 

They can remember it from life. 

Carmilla remembers her last moments alive, fighting for breath, feeling the blood filing her mouth. Choking on it, with no one to hear her screams but Mamma, who held her close and stroked her hair as she trembled and shook. 

It had felt like a river washing over her, carrying the spirit away with it, to wash up on some old forgotten shore. 

Leaving the body behind to rot and decay, twisted into something else quite unnatural.

She tries to scream, but only blood fills her mouth. No air and no relief. The taste is awful and unnatural, and she wonders if this might be how her kind can die. Only through the blood, perhaps. Just as they find life.

*

For nearly seventy years, she tries to scream, and remembers the exact feeling of her final fight for air.

Feels it crushing her like something immense, black, and forbidden. 

Something impossible but irresistible, like a thought of escape.

She chokes on the blood and hopes it isn't Ell's. 

*

She wakes to the sounds of screaming and gunfire. 

The bombs produce enough billows of dust and smoke that could serve as her bedding, but she has had her fill of rest. Enough rest and staying in one place to last her centuries. 

Barefoot, stumbling, her dress torn and stained a brackish red, Carmilla walks the length of a battlefield. She only stops to find food (there is so much lying around), and sometimes she seeks shelter in the sunlight. 

She is the same raw, red color of the mud where she pins herself down and waits for a careless soldier to pass by.

It doesn't matter what uniform they are wearing. They are human, and that is mask enough. 

But she strips him of that quickly.

* 

On her way through Poland, she discovers a girl who reminds her so very much of Ell. 

Fair and kind, she has a shy smile and a beautiful mouth. 

They kiss under the light of the moon, and she tells Carmilla that she is beautiful this way.

As so many others have. 

"You are beautiful," Carmilla says in return, and although it isn't a lie, she is surprised to discover how little she cares. 

Whatever heart she may have had left must have sunk to the bottom of the coffin, too damp and useless to take along with her. When she smiles at the girl, her fangs are showing. 

She does not care about that either, despite the way the girl starts to scream.

*

It is liberating to know precisely how much of her is monster and how much is girl. She understands it better now. The fear and revulsion are a kind of gift. 

No more masks. 

*

(If only the dreams of drowning would stop. One night, and only the once, she dreamed it was Ell who held her under, though she struggled to rise up. 

She woke from the dream with a terrible, clenching pain in her chest and warm, slick blood rising in her throat.

Though she's tried to draw the image back, Ell has not come to her again.)

*

Mamma finds her in Paris. 

She is not calling herself any of the names they used together, but still she is found, her naked arm wrapped around a petite and pretty thing in bed. 

"Still lying with filth, I see."

Perhaps she had intended to wake her, to surprise her, but Carmilla could feel her mother's presence before she reached the end of the hall. 

If she had a heart still, it would be pounding, drowning out the frantic squeaks of the girl rushing to get dressed. 

She makes no move to stop her, no gesture of concern, and so Mamma allows the creature to depart with nothing greater than a sneer of mild disdain. "Did you think I wouldn't find you?" 

"I don't think of you at all," she lies.

"A day has not gone by without my missing you in it."

"You trapped me there for much longer than _days_ , mother."

Mamma's gaze is fixed and intent, seeing through everything Carmilla is and has never been. The monster and the girl underneath. She is the only person in all the world who looks and sees Mircalla Karnstein too. Countess lost to history. 

History and mother. Both are such unrelenting mistresses.

"And have you learned your lesson?" She moves closer to the bedside, and so Carmilla ducks out from under the sheets in search of distance and a shirt to cover herself with. "Joining with these beasts is beneath you."

The shirt still smells like that girl's perfume -- lavender and something else -- but she doesn't let the realization show on her face. Boredom. She must affect boredom. "They're fun, these girls. You remember fun--" As she turns, her eyes are caught on her mother's gaze. 

Frozen. 

She is a girl frozen in time, forever eighteen and insignificant. 

"My girl," her mother purrs, and she knows she has already lost, because it is true. She is hers. "My most precious gem." 

Her hands are in Carmilla's hair, stroking softly. 

"Mamma…"

"Hush, darling."

She has never understood how one woman's kisses can be so cold, without even a hint of a feigned human emotion, lingering against Carmilla's cheek. 

Kissing her over and over, and she feels herself grow still. 

Stiff like a dress caked in dried blood. 

"There now," her mother says, red lips close to the curve of her ear. "Please don't make me send you away again, my foolish girl."


	2. Part of the Organization

*

Danny was always the one dragging other kids away from fights on the playground. 

Bruises on her knuckles and tangles in her hair.

"You can't just do things like that," she would tell her younger brothers and sister, flattening their hair with a heavy hand.

Even though "things like that" were precisely the sorts of things that Danny was inclined to do herself, and always had been. She had a certain knack for finding trouble -- the kind that other people were already in -- and pulling them out of it again. 

She didn't start fights, but she could finish them.

The first time some punk kid picked a fight with one of the younger boys, Danny showed no mercy. The twerp was younger than her, sure, but nearly the same weight, and two years older than her brother. 

She's never liked bullies, even small ones. 

She shoved him into the grass, pinned him there with her knees, and made him say that he was sorry, red-faced and covered in snot, sniffling as he wiped his eyes and crawled away. 

There are probably some people who would call that kind of violence excessive or whatever, but Danny has a nagging sense of justice that she carries around with her wherever she goes. 

It's the kind of thing that has stopped her short on the street, tugging her earbuds out to ask a perfect stranger, in a clipped but neutral tone, "Hey miss, is this guy bothering you?"

Not like she can fix everything, or even take down everyone she might want to. There are times she's kept quiet out of a latent sort of self-preservation, especially in a place like Silas; but she does what she can. When she can.

Apologies are easy, and usually not very sincere, but they still make a person feel better about the sort of things they can't control.

Bullies, for example. Vampires. 

Ancient beings made of light that seek to devour the souls of humanity. 

Those kind of things.

*

Her first week at Silas, Danny is so anxious and homesick she could almost throw up, except she's mostly too miserable to eat so that doesn't happen. 

Here everybody else is bigger, older, more seasoned and mature.

Plus there's something seriously weird about the library, and nobody will answer her questions about it. They all just kind of avert their gaze and suddenly have something important to do elsewhere. 

It's weird. 

* 

She discovers The Summer Society almost by mistake. They were probably at some school-wide event in the first few days to recruit and help foster togetherness or whatever, but Danny stayed in bed during all of those, pretending it was out of boredom instead of a keen desire to be anywhere but here. 

Literally anywhere, and that's now an officially acceptable usage of the word literally. 

It's valid; she means it. Meant it. 

Because then came the happy accident that changed everything. It's some random day in the first month, lazing around on the quad instead of in bed, when Danny notices a bunch of strong and solemn ladies doing calisthenics out on the grass. 

A few of them could do with minor correction to their form, and maybe it was habit or instinct, maybe she was bored, but suddenly Danny was up on her feet, marching right over there with a smile already in place. 

"Hi, I'm Danny," she had said, surprised herself by the suddenly renewed spring in her step when she shifted on her feet and smiled. "Mind if I help out?"

* 

Helping out is kind of her thing. It runs right up there with being freakishly tall, at least according to some (a lot of) people. 

_Legs for days_ , her last boyfriend said, before she punched him in the shoulder.

But, yeah. Basically that.

*

Turns out the library isn't the only thing wrong with Silas, but once Danny has her sisters things become a lot more manageable. Not just in terms of things that don't make sense -- that people mostly don't talk about or acknowledge in clear, confident terms -- but also just the idea of being here for four straight years. 

Suddenly it seems doable, even fun. 

These ladies are super organized, which is good, because Danny can be the kind of person inclined to sleep through an alarm. (The first time she almost does that, her new roommate tosses a pillow at her head.) Day two, she's added to the chore wheel. At first she assumes that assignments like removing strange larvae from the shower room is some kind of freshman hazing, but it turns out to be a normal part of the routine.

Also, don't leave blood on the hunting equipment, and always hydrate after sparring. It's probably common sense, but it's good to have written down. Organized.

Their finer points rub off on her, and she likes to think she does the same for them. 

Like the sisters finally stop losing their slots on the school social calendar to Zeta frat parties, for example. Some of the older sisters think the best solution to a problem is cooperation and teamwork, but in her own experience it's better to stand your ground. It's the only thing some people will understand.

*

Because the Zetas are a bunch of self-involved assholes who take it upon themselves (apparently every year) to try to make a joke out of the first day of ceremonies at the Adonis Festival. Just because they do a staged reenactment of ancient burial rites which, yes, admittedly involve flogging and self-flagellation, that's no excuse for them to mime jerking each other off all over the quad. 

According to the elder sisters, this is a long standing tradition of "rivalry," because every single time a guy finds an excuse to fixate on his junk -- and try to get everyone else to join in with him -- it's somehow only part of a friendly game. Just some fun. Except this isn't what sportsmanship is about. 

Good sportsmanship is about figuring out the rules and then _winning_. 

Which Danny does, handily enough. (All obvious jokes aside.) All it takes is a minor addendum to the rules that any men who wish to participate outside the pre-prescribed group of penitents must be stripped and made to join the hunt that night.

Totally naked. (War paint optional.) 

See how many of them want to play at dick measuring then.

* 

This is how Danny becomes Vice President of outdoor recreation for the entire Summer Society before the end of her Freshman year. 

Things are looking up for pretty much everyone except for certain Zetas. 

(Put it down as performance anxiety.)

*

The library is still not the place you want to be at night, which is at least something that they eventually make clear on cleverly illustrated and informative flyers distributed throughout campus. Courtesy of The Summer Society, of course.

A school dance or a festival isn't the only time worth celebrating if you can manage to keep the student body in better (safer) condition all year round! That's the new motto. 

Well that and, "Tell the Zetas to bite me."

That one courtesy of Danny herself. 

* 

On the list of scary things at Silas University, here's another: Laura Hollis.

Who starts out as just this really cute kid, you know. One that kind of reminds Danny of her own sister. Or possibly one of the boys, always getting into trouble, biting off way more than she can chew and then dragging it around like a bone she just won't let go of, and maybe this metaphor is gross. 

But the point is that Hollis was just this super endearing little freshman who stood up for what was right, and Danny wanted to help. Felt compelled to help, that's all. 

Doing the right thing, even when it's kind of dumb, is sort of her thing.

Everybody's got their _thing_ in college, and Danny's is being the big sister to basically everyone.

Straight forward and simple, except when you realize that maybe little sister isn't just endearing and cute. Maybe she's also kind of attractive, especially when she's blushing and flustered, lowering her eyes like some kind of cheesy ploy except that no, that's just the way that Hollis is. No subterfuge necessary or probably even possible.

She just is. 

All substance, but also on the surface. 

Even when she thinks she's being subtle, sending looks at Danny during class that linger way too long when she really ought to be paying attention to the lecture instead. 

Unless she's just looking for a solid excuse to borrow notes from her TA.

That might be something Danny could get behind. 

* 

No, but this could seriously be a problem since apparently that confrontation with the Dean was not just a one off thing and Laura's got the preservation instincts of a blind kitten, or actually a much more frightening metaphor than that might be required. 

Maybe some kind of well-meaning fish trying to help turtles in a sea filled with sharks.

Or just the kitten thing. 

Whatever.

* 

What's the point of the sisters working to keep the campus safe -- re-instituting the night marches and promoting sister solidarity -- if people like Laura keep sneaking around, running off in the middle of the night to do incredibly dangerous things? 

The least she could do is tell Danny.

And not after her life is in danger, either. Tell her in advance, so she can try to help at least, or do something even more useful like thoroughly explain the dangers that really should already be apparent to anyone with eyes; but a lot of people seem to ignore the weird when they're at Silas. 

Which incidentally seems to be getting exponentially weirder at a terrifying pace.

Like sure, this place has always been ookie, but in a way that most of the student body brushed off as just being "strangely European." On a campus made up mostly of slightly sheltered American and Canadian transplants looking to feel extra worldly, that kind of excuse seemed to fly with most people, even if Danny thought it was always kind of convenient. 

Like if mice with what appears to be an uncanny ability to read minds was just an everyday thing across all of eastern Europe, you'd think someone would have mentioned by now. There'd be videos up on youtube! Probably. So Danny has never really bought into the whole excuse, even if she didn't want to accidentally insult other cultures by bringing it up too often.

Obviously if a student wants to worship an ancient god of the forests, that is perfectly within their rights, just as long as their blood rite doesn't involve sacrificing anything with a still-beating heart. That's where the sisters draw the line! 

(Even the Zetas agreed on that one, actually.)

* 

Not to mention, Hollis has got a seriously disturbed roommate who could probably use some chai tea in her diet or something. 

Maybe yoga or a colonic. 

She's always super intense, for seemingly no reason at all, and she has this _really_ annoying habit of dropping literary references every other sentence, just to clue you in that, you know, she's read books and you should be impressed. 

Hello! Lit TA. Not exactly standing out from the crowd, but good try, sunshine.

*

Speaking of: does she never go out during the day? 

Girl is seriously pale.

*

(Not that Danny really minds all the extra time alone with Laura in her room at night.)

* 

Because things are progressing on that front, however slowly. 

Like they hold hands sometimes. 

It might not sound like a big thing, in a lot of ways it's not, except it's so… nice. She likes it, just holding Laura's hand. 

It just starts to happen, without any discussion about the whys or what-they-ares, except only when they're alone. Laura is obviously uncomfortable around her intensely freaky roommate, sure, and Danny can't blame her, but she's kind of starting to feel seventeen again. 

Like she's sneaking around behind her parents' back, and the only thing missing is a car to awkwardly grope in, but the back corner of the Society's meeting room will have to do.

Or it _would_ if Laura actually seemed interested. 

Which, okay. Danny is fine with taking things slow! She's okay with holding hands and whispering, pressing her mouth close to the curve of Laura's neck as they sit on her bed. Giggling together and making plans.

Saving people together. Hopefully.

She's fine with that.

Except the roommate from Hell always seems to know precisely when their mouths have (finally) found each other, and chooses _right then_ to announce herself by bursting through the door.

The way they suddenly separate, flushed and breathless -- with Laura's hand still caught for a moment underneath Danny's shirt before suddenly disappearing to a considerable distance (along with the rest of Laura), several inches away --

Yeah, all this is a little bit high school too. And maybe that just gets the best of her, because now Danny is flustered, glaring at the doorway. "Jesus, could you knock!"

"I live here, you cretin."

Carmilla collapses onto the bed with what she probably thinks is grace and a certain amount of carefully constructed ennui, sighing loudly. 

Gross.

"Um." Laura glances between them, but her attention lands on Carmilla. "Do you think maybe you could..."

But Carmilla's book is already out, so she doesn't even glance up. She carries one of those everywhere, like it's a talisman to ward off evil. Or you know, basic human interaction. "Don't let me stop you…"

Double gross.

Danny scoffs under her breath. If her cheeks weren't already burning a slight red from earlier, they definitely would be now. For a completely different reason, though. "We're not going to put on a _show_ for you--"

"Believe me, I know. I'd have to be entertained by what I see first." Everything about the way Carmilla talks -- and everything she _is_ \-- is just so false, it's like a shitty street magician that refuses to give up on their patter. She gives Danny such a disgustingly fake glance over, pursing her lips in exaggerated thought. "Though you do look a bit _funny_ , I suppose."

Danny is standing before it even fully occurs to her that she really ( _really_ ) wants to wring that pale, scrawny little neck. Not that she _would_ , being bigger and all. (Even if the twerp deserves it.) But still, there's rage in her voice, and she's taking several steps closer; "Look--"

But suddenly Laura is there with her hands pressed firmly against Danny's torso, and okay. 

She'll take that. For now.

"She's sorry."

Laura with her pursed lips and incredibly misplaced faith. 

"No, I'm really not."

"She's not _sorry_ , Laura, because she's an _asshole_."

"… maybe that," Carmilla interjects again, still not looking up from her book. 

"Would you _stop_?"

Miracle of miracles, she actually listens when Laura snaps at her.

Almost.

"Whatever you say, sweetie pie." And suddenly her eyes are no longer on the book, because instead she's devouring Laura with the same interest and intensity she usually seems to reserve for pouring over Kant or whoever. 

Even the way her mouth is moving is smug and self-satisfied. She talks like someone who is always just seconds away from tasting something amazing. Or like she just _did_ , and there's red frosting still on her mouth.

Because of course the freak would like red frosting, which is absolutely disgusting. 

(The way that she can't keep her grubby eyes off Laura is disgusting.)

It's clear Danny has to intervene, however she can. "And if Laura asks you to leave again--"

"I'm afraid some invitations can't be revoked," Carmilla almost purrs, adding in that extra weight she seems to place on every other sentence to the point that it all becomes pretty maudlin. "This still isn't your room."

Fine. 

They can go back to Danny's place. That's fine.

" _Fine._ "

But when she starts to go, Laura is still sitting, staring down Carmilla. 

Like it's some kind of sick game, but only those two know the rules. Danny hates competitions she has no chance at winning. At least lay down the boundaries. "Hey, Laura…" She actually has to wait a second or two for Laura to look at her again, like she almost forgot Danny was here, and that shit eating grin on the pseudo goth's face makes her blood boil. "… let's go." 

Laura swallows. "You know…"

She does, actually. In this moment, she knows exactly how this is going to go. All the hours, days, maybe weeks in between before this all just fizzles out and Laura decides that what she wants is something she doesn't quite know instead of the thing (the person) already underneath her hand. Just that single second of quiet calm acceptance, but then it's gone. 

Danny doesn't like to quit. Doesn't really see why she should have to.

"It's late," she says.

And Laura agrees. " _Yes_. Exactly, and I'm … kind of tired." 

"Yeah." 

A beat. Danny's heart is beating so much faster than it should be. She calls to mind a few breathing exercises from running. In through the nose, out through the mouth. 

Calm.

They say their goodnights, and Laura even waves (she _waves_ ) in this awkward sort of way that Danny knows she shouldn't find so endearing. In the meantime, Carmilla has disappeared back behind her book, wholly disinterested. 

But then, just as the door is closing, Danny hears, "Night, Gigantor." 

In through the nose.

Out through the mouth.

*

An almost infinite reserve of patience is also kind of her thing.


	3. The Hoos and Whos

*

They write books on grief for children. 

They say trite little things that must be meant as comfort about a person's place in the world and how many lives they might touch before they leave it. All it did was make Laura feel small.

She was already small enough.

So was mom, but that didn't stop the pneumonia from swooping in and peeling away half her weight. Laura clutched her hand at the bedside and watched her waste away, until she was dragged from the room, kept out because mom might be contagious. 

Then kept out completely because she was suddenly (abruptly) gone. 

Books for children say that the body is a vessel. They say a lot of spiritual things about what comes next. 

What it all means. 

It's pretty heavy stuff for a six year old, but she doesn't remember being overwhelmed. It was comforting, somehow. Looking back, it shouldn't have been.

Looking back that book with its cartoon owls that lose their dad to a _hunter_ should have raised some serious red flags, but at the time it had felt like an Answer. She wanted nothing more at the time than to know the _whys_.

Or maybe even the _whos_. 

Like who to blame. 

Where all the anger that she never remembered feeling up until then was suddenly supposed to go. 

Laura has never been an angry person, and she must have burned most of it out again before she hit puberty, but she does remember breaking a lot of glass that year. Just sweeping dishes onto the floor in a fit. 

And dad never said a thing.

Looking back, that's kind of weird too. 

* 

While Laura channeled herself into uncharacteristic destruction, her dad threw himself into home improvement projects. 

He built them a deck. From scratch. 

No, really. He honest to god went into the woods, felled some trees (that's a thing people can still do, they fell), carved the wood by hand and built a deck. 

A nice one too, with varnish and carefully sanded edges. All the slats close together and snug, so that Laura couldn't risk falling through. 

Because these were apparently the kind of things her dad assumed might happen. Maybe she could trip and fall through a hole in their deck, never to be seen or heard from again. 

To say her mom's death messed her dad up a bit is probably an understatement, except maybe he was always overprotective and mom just ran interference. 

She honestly can't remember.

* 

Silas University isn't first pick for a lot of kids, but Laura applies there (and only there) sight unseen. 

No offense to her dad -- who she loves to bits and pieces, _really_ \-- but she can't take another year of his constant hovering, peering over her shoulder and double checking every few hours to see if she's eaten. Dad, yes. I'm almost nineteen and have learned how to ingest food on my own! Thank you, though. 

(Just because there was that _one time_ when she went a whole Saturday without eating anything and nearly passed out in the living room because she was distracted by the _thrilling_ end to a novel she had been reading all week, that doesn't mean it's a chronic thing. I mean, we're talking about anticipation that had been building _all week long_. A more reasonable person would have understood her dilemma.)

Point being: Silas is a beacon of hope! 

Or at least, that's the thought when the welcome packet arrives and Laura gets so excited that she actually smells it. Which is, actually, kind of gross. Not doing that again, and _what_ exactly is that thin layer of slime on the--

You know what, never mind. 

Nothing can ruin this moment for her! Not even mystery goop that appears to be stained into some of the actual pages of the brochure as well. Must be some mistake from the printer. 

*

Or perhaps some kind of illegal drug cartel is using the Silas school manual as a means of transporting their incredibly dangerous substances overseas. Lure in unsuspecting American and Canadian youths who inadvertently become _addicted_ by absorbing it through their skin, and then, once they are in your thrall, you sell them _all_ the drugs for an incredibly large sum of money!

It's definitely worth looking into.

*

If she'd had many friends growing up, Laura thinks they might have all called her eccentric, which is just the way that petty people express that you have different ideas about life than they do. 

That's fine! Who is she to judge if some people don't prioritize the same things that she does? Like integrity, honesty, and truth.

Truth, above all. 

*

And here's one very important truth: her Lit TA is really ( _really_ ) hot.

 _Holy crap_.

*

Keep it cool, Laura. Keep it cool and do not walk by the entrance to the Summer Society lodge twice in one hour just to see if you spot her -- Danny, her name is Danny and she looks really good in pale blue -- or if you really _must_ embarrass yourself, the least you can do is have headphones on at the time, pretending to be jamming out. 

Much better. 

Nice save.

* 

(It's possible that Laura has been talking about Danny too much, because Betty is now using her as leverage to do really irresponsible things like lurk around those pushy Zeta guys out on the grass or attend parties on campus in the middle of the week.

Not that it doesn't work, because it totally works.)

*

Update: Danny is no longer Laura's biggest concern.

Like, not at all.

* 

It's not like Betty and Laura had a lot of things in common. Outside of college, they might not have even hung out, but that doesn't mean she deserves to disappear off the face of the earth and then have nobody care. 

How can _nobody_ care? Why don't the other students seem even a little bit worried, and why is the university itself so blasé about a student disappearing? 

Correction: _students_ , since apparently this is a _thing_ and it's been happening for a while now, and how come this wasn't on the walking tour of campus? Warning to incoming students: you might disappear in the middle of the night, so yeah, that extra shot of tequila really _could_ do harm, your father wasn't lying.

Oh god. She can't let her dad find out about this.

* 

Not that he's calling long distance to Austria on a regular basis. He worries, he loves her, but he's not a millionaire. 

* 

The worst thing about Betty going missing -- other than the fact that a girl is missing, which is nightmare fuel all on its own -- is the sudden appearance of Carmilla, the roommate from Hell. If potentially saving someone from an unknown fate -- and okay, getting a _really good grade_ in her journalism class too -- wasn't motivation enough, getting rid of _this one_ would do it.

A list of Carmilla's worst traits. Well if someone were to, for example, randomly come up with such a list and type it in a text document with increasing anger until their stupid roommate made some dumb remark about going easy on the keyboard, _sweetie_ , then it might include things like:

  * Inconsiderate. 
  * Always smirking. 
  * Takes her shirt off _randomly_ , no matter who is in the room or what they're doing. 
  * Does not do dishes or make her bed or clean the shower or replace the toilet paper roll. 
  * _Does_ leave mysterious substances all over everything, including my pillow which _SHE WON'T STOP STEALING_.



She just saunters through life without a care in the world, laughing at anyone who actually does bother to spare a moment or two to consider other people. Now maybe that particularly smug walk -- who knew someone could walk smugly, Laura certainly didn't until now -- is because her pants are so tight, that might be a possibility, and those leather pants do _not_ look as good on her as she obviously thinks they do.

They're fine, but not that great. 

*

What is great?

Danny is great. She actually is. She doesn't push, but she's always around, offering to help or sometimes even carry Laura's books -- okay, that's admittedly kind of weird -- and she really cares about these missing girls too. Like for a while, Laura thought maybe her dad was right to keep her away from so much of the outside world where apparently people go _missing_ and literally no one cares.

But Danny cares. 

So that's nice and refreshing, and sometimes they end up holding hands when they're alone together in the library -- _before_ the sun sets, Danny is _very_ strict about that one -- and that's nice too. The hand holding, not the creepiness of the school library.

That's actually pretty messed up, but you know. Just add it to the list.

*

It's pretty late one night when Danny offers to walk Laura back to her dorm, hands in her pockets, shifting on her feet. "Or, you know…" She shrugs, but Laura does not know, so she has to keep going; "We could stop by the Society lodge, instead. If you want." 

She waits, apparently expecting some kind of important response that Laura's still drawing a blank on. "…Uh."

"I mean, because your roommate--"

"-- probably isn't even home, actually, since it's late enough for normal people to be in bed, which is kind of the inverse of her thing, you know."

"Right. Okay, cool."

Somehow they're talking about Carmilla again, which kind of keeps happening. 

Laura's not even sure how.

Because honestly, she's pretty sure she would rather talk about _anything_ else, or even not talk at all, which is apparently what they've settled for, slowly walking together in the direction of Laura's dorm. 

"I just thought…" Danny eventually starts again; "I could introduce you to a few of the sisters."

Which is totally some kind of attempt to set Laura up with more friends, isn't it? She totally makes friends on her own, Danny! And although the gesture is _sweet_ , it is entirely unnecessary. 

"I don't know," Laura responds, playing it totally cool. "I'm kind of busy with my own thing."

Nailed it.

"… what?" 

Or not, if Danny's expression is anything to go by. "Not tonight, I mean." 

Fixed it.


	4. Grown Ups

*

Ever since Elsie went missing, the entire rhythm in the dorm has been off. Mostly nobody really seems to want to acknowledge it, but it's been bothering Danny. 

A lot.

Like when you run, you're supposed to set a pace and stick to it, that's how you keep momentum. Every part, you know, every muscle in your legs, spine, even the way the weight caries through your shoulders. It all works together, and a sisterhood is like that too.

Now a piece is missing. 

The two of them were never super close -- anthropology and literary theory don't really have a _lot_ of overlap -- but she was still a sister, an important part of the engine that kept all of them going, and now she's just gone. 

Potentially eaten by a vampire who is _rooming_ with the girl Danny might be crushing on a bit harder (and faster) than she ever really means to at college. (Especially someone at Silas, where she's already got so many sisters to think about, and terrible things are't exactly uncommon.) 

Running usually clears Danny's head, but right now it isn't working. 

She feels stuck, her head and her heart on a constant loop, and she wonders why Laura hasn't texted. Is she okay? 

She's probably fine, right? 

*

Vampire bait. That's the actual plan. 

The genius plan that Laura has come up with is to make the potentially deadly vampire want to eat her _even more_ , and it's so stupid and brave and reckless that Danny could want to cry if it didn't also make her want to kiss her. 

So stupid. 

*

"How do I look?"

"Like you're about to flee your brooding lover across the moors." 

Laura smiles, and Danny's heart thumps harder. She's been trying to convince herself that this is just like an athletic competition or anything else she might be pumping herself up for, so there's no need to worry or panic. Just like javelin toss. 

(Can you kill vampires with a javelin? This might be something she should look into.)

"No, but really."

Danny stops and really looks at Laura, working hard not to show any of her own fear or hesitation. That won't help anyone. "You look good." 

She already knows that Danny thinks so, right. She has to.

"Thanks…"

She's still smiling, looking even a little bit more pleased, and Danny's heart just won't stop, so she should probably go and do breathing exercises somewhere outside. Try to find her focus, or whatever.

* 

Please don't get eaten, Laura. 

Just.

Please don't.

* 

Danny's face hurts for a couple days after they capture Carmilla, when she gets her black eye; she kind of loses track of how long.

But it takes Laura four days and seventeen hours to text or check in, and it annoys Danny so much that she knows the exact time. That she notices. Because obviously holding a vampire hostage is weighing sort of heavily on Laura's mind, you know, who wouldn't find that a little overwhelming. 

Except that she is literally holding a _vampire_ hostage, so maybe she could understand how her friends might worry. 

Just a heads up, saying, "Hi guys, I'm still not dead," would be nice. 

It doesn't really feel like asking that much.

* 

Laura isn't in class, which is the first time she hasn't shown all year. 

Even when her roommate first went missing, she was there. 

So Danny texts and hears back right away -- so obviously she is awake, at least -- that Laura won't be coming in, because Carmilla is close to cracking. 

Somehow it always comes back to that vampire.

* 

When Perry bursts through the door of the Summer Society lodge, she is breaking so many rules and regulations -- which is a big red flag that something huge must be up since this is _Perry_ \-- and she's also out of breath and really wide-eyed, so even though a bunch of sisters are starting to gather around to push, question, and complain, Danny is already barreling through them so she can get out the most important question of all, which is, "Where's Laura?"

Maybe it isn't fair to assume, but who is she kidding. 

Who else could it be about unless--

"She's _out_ , Carmilla is--"

But Danny isn't listening past that. 

She takes the steps four at a time, sprinting up the stairs to her bedroom where she's been keeping the stake she whittled a week ago.

Stupid, stupid. 

She should have kept it with her, just in case. 

So stupid, and if Laura is dead before they get there, she's really never going to forgive herself, but for now she has to focus. Every muscle in rhythm, picking up speed as she sprints across campus. 

Before it had taken eight of them to bring Carmilla down, and she still got a couple good hits in. 

If she wants to hurt Laura, nothing can stop her. That's the realistic answer. 

The smart one.

But Laura has not been playing it smart for a while, not at all, and so Danny can't afford to think of it that way either, not if she wants to keep her safe. And god, she does. 

She _really_ does, so she'll show up, stake Carmilla's skanky ass, and then she'll spit on her ashes. 

*

If nothing else, Danny hopes Carmilla chokes on her. 

* 

(Please don't be dead, Laura.

Please, please, _please_ don't be dead.) 

* 

Well.

*

The good news is that Laura isn't dead. She's fine, apparently. _Really_ fine, and Danny should have known. 

Apparently.

Because one student is dead and girls are still missing or brainwashed and Laura's roommate is a _vampire_ , but worrying makes Danny just another dad. 

Which.

She'd kind of thought she was something else, actually.

* 

It takes some time for her throat to stop hurting, but at least it does stop. 

Everything else kind of aches for a lot longer than that. 

The other sisters keep trying to cheer her up. They tell her she's too good for Laura, and they'll find Elsie themselves. What were you thinking, trying to date a freshman anyway?

And okay, sure. They have a point. She's just another freshman. 

It's not a big deal.

So Danny keeps up her duties on the chore wheel, and makes breakfast for the entire house. She keeps her room extra tidy -- except for the stack of weapons still in need of repair in the corner, but it's on the to-do list -- and she gets started on planning for the Winter Solstice extra early. 

Also, she makes sure to have a few extra stakes handy. 

Just in case.

*

Laura's not in class (again), and this time Danny doesn't text her to check that she's okay.

Obviously.

*

But okay so what exactly is the protocol when your not-girlfriend says she wants you to leave her alone and then about a week later she wants to speak with you in her room? 

Like, that's got to be an actual apology about to happen, right? Because if she just wants to make out, that's not okay, Danny isn't going to put up with that. Sure Laura's got a lot on her mind, but the least she can do is treat her friends who aren't kidnapped like she still gives a shit. 

Except maybe Laura is in trouble. Like serious trouble.

Like my roommate is a vampire who has probably eaten hundreds of people kind of trouble. 

Danny should probably hurry.

*

Oh.

*

Fuck Laura, okay? 

Seriously.

As if she's the only person on campus with problems. 

As if she's the only one who cares about the people who are missing, like Danny and the other sisters wouldn't rather spend every minute trying to find Elsie, but you know what, they're grown ups who understand they have other responsibilities. The world doesn't just stop because girls go missing (not at Silas), and if she doesn't want to wreck things for everyone else, Danny has a lot of shit she still has to do. Everyone does.

Does Laura think she deserves special treatment or something?

Because there's another thing grown ups understand: there is a right time and place to do things, and your _bedroom_ shouldn't really be the place you try to work out some kind of business transaction where you exchange favors for, what, a couple weeks you invested into whatever it was the two of you had before you turned around and--

You know what, never mind.

But fuck Laura Hollis. 

*

Danny almost hates herself for still worrying, even after this.

Because if anything, it only confirmed just how dumb and reckless Laura really is. How prone to stupid mistakes that could get her _killed_.

And you know what, Danny worries. 

She does.

*

When Laura stands up on that stage in front of everyone and actually starts to bring even _more_ attention to herself and her dumb plans -- that probably involve being bait for like _ten_ vampires this time or something -- while also suggesting that somehow she's the only person on campus who is even trying to help, Danny isn't actually the first person who throws something. She's really not. 

But one of her sisters definitely is. 

And although it crosses her mind to stop them, like maybe she could intervene and calm things down, she stays silent instead.

Laura doesn't need another dad.

*

(She's not _bitter_ , okay. She's busy. She has classwork and the Society to worry about and _Elsie is still missing_ , and everyone expects Danny to know how to fix things. She doesn't always know how to fix things, but she _tries_ , you know, and sometimes trying just gets you tossed out on your ass so like--

What are you supposed to do then?)

*

Every time the sisters notice Danny checking her phone, they demand to know who she's talking to, because they've all decided as a group that she's not supposed to answer anymore texts from Laura -- "that user," which okay, kind of harsh but maybe also kind of true -- and she understands that.

She does.

So when a terrified text comes in from Laura, she actually has to _jog_ across campus at a pretty decent clip just to keep one of the sisters from snatching her phone away. 

Because it really _sounds_ important. Or maybe Laura's just going to break her heart again, but you know.

> _Trapped in basement of old chapel. Come quick. Bring stakes._

This might actually be serious.


	5. Paradise

*

There is a space somewhere between the ocean floor and the surface above where the only thing you can really see are your own hands swimming in front of you, and still you must go deeper.

It had occurred to Carmilla to wonder if going underwater to retrieve this stupid sword might feel a bit like drowning -- like seventy years buried and screaming -- but it had been easy to make the promise with Laura looking at her with that shy and uncertain smile. 

It's so easy for Carmilla to pretend to be someone she's not when she just wants a pretty girl to smile at her.

She's usually smart enough not to want or hope for those kind of things. She's the kind of clever that breeds fear, and it's fear that keeps you alive long enough. It's fear that's kept her running all these years, and she'd worried it might take hold again -- deep beneath the waves, with no smile to guide her down.

But it's so much easier not to think about that now when there's a brand new fear to take its place, wondering about what might be happening to Laura right now.

Stupid, trusting Laura, who put all her faith in a vampire, only to end up eaten. 

Or worse.

* 

The fish swimming by are easily startled, jerking fast. They aren't very accustomed to humans this far below. But then, she isn't human.

Perhaps they sense that too.

*

Carmilla puts her hand to the hilt of the sword, and it burns against her palm. When she opens her mouth to scream, a stream of bubbles fly out along with muffled obscenities. 

It's moving. Slowly. 

Way too slow.

She braces one foot against the rocks and tugs until her hands begin to bleed, tiny rivulets of red rising upward like hissing steam. 

* 

Carmilla comes running home as a cat because it's faster, and she's always felt braver with four feet on the ground. 

Brave and dangerous and willing to rush toward a bright and foreboding light so that she can drag (stupid, trusting, caring) Laura back to where it's safe. Carmilla shoves her far enough back behind her to have room to swing the sword. 

She didn't drag it all this way just for show. 

*

The light is so bright that it burns straight through her. 

From somewhere deep and basic, she hates it, hates it with every part of her, but it does not care and does not relent. It fills her up, all the empty spaces inside, and even when she closes her eyes it's there burning bright through her eyelids. Hot against her flesh.

So she plunges her sword straight into its heart, eyes closed, using the light to guide her, and it pulses. It shudders. 

Her hands burn. She is on fire, and falling fast.

*

The only dreams Carmilla remembers in over a hundred years have all been nightmares, when she even dreams at all. Some nights are just vast and empty. 

This is mostly like that. 

The darkness is infinite. No light or stars. 

Sometimes Ell is there, but she isn't angry. She holds Carmilla's face in her hands and dries her tears with the soft pads of her thumbs. 

She's really not sure if this is only a dream, or something more. 

She carries her in her arms, cradled close to her chest, and for just a moment she feels a raw light burning through her eyelids and wonders if they ever really won at all. But it passes away into stillness again.

Until she tastes fresh blood against her lips.

A voice is speaking, and it isn't Ell's, saying, "Please don't be dead."

"Please…" Carmilla thinks she says in response, but the voice persists.

"Please, don't be dead."

Her eyes open. She's awake. 

She's alive, and Laura is watching her with a mixture of relief and confusion. Danny too, and that Perry person. The one who cleans .

And Laura is rambling, it's so endearing. It's such a relief after the silence and confusion and Carmilla knows she ought to wait perhaps. That humans do so love to talk (especially Laura), to take so much time to figure things out, but she kisses her instead. 

Laura tastes amazing. Like happiness, or something pathetic like that. She tastes like the kinds of things poetry is written about and remembered for a hundred years. 

*

It's only after they pull away that Carmilla realizes that she still had blood in her mouth, and that Laura didn't object.

That some girls will kiss their monsters without turning away. 

*

The next few days pass strangely. It's not as though spending so much time together in one room is really very different or new, they've been roommates for some time obviously, but now they spend it only inches apart, with Laura curled against her side. 

It's strange, that's all.

She smells good, very much alive, and she touches Carmilla often. It's not even (usually) sexual, but she grazes her hand against the small of Carmilla's back or drifts her fingertips across the crook of her elbow. 

Constantly checking to see if she's still there, all in one piece. 

And she is, even though she feels herself flying apart every time Laura laughs against her mouth when they kiss, warm breath slipping against cold fangs. 

They are like that, Laura's tongue in her mouth and her hands on Laura's hips, when Danny bursts in and immediately (apologetically) stumbles back out. 

"They still don't _knock_?" 

Carmilla is surprised herself by how amused she sounds rather than annoyed. 

It's hard to be angry when you're not even meant to be alive. 

"I'm so sorry!" But now Laura is getting up, and that's easier to be upset about. She sits up on her elbow, frowning. "I told Danny to meet me, we need to talk about the other girls and how they're going to make up for all that missed school work."

"… seriously? That's your priority right now?" 

Laura stops on her way to the door, a sort of coy grin twisting up her cute little features (and god, Carmilla's brain needs to stop doing that), saying, "That's not my _only_ priority, as if your mouth hasn't noticed."

"Oh, my mouth has--"

But Carmilla decides to stop herself from finishing that sentence as Laura tugs the door open again, revealing Danny on the other side, almost as red as her hair. 

"… I can come back some other time," she says in the general direction of her shoes. "If you two are going to keep-- you know."

"We're not," Carmilla groans. "Apparently those missing girls still rate higher than I do, even though they're no longer missing."

If she didn't know better, she'd think the look Danny gives her after that might be classified as fond. "Trust me, I know the feeling."

"No!" Laura glances back and forth between them rapidly, waving her hands, which is a thing she does. It's adorable. "No, you two are not going to gang up on me, or I won't invite Danny over anymore."

Carmilla sits up at this, intrigued. 

She's known since day one that Laura is especially fun when squirming. "Come on inside, Lawrence. We'll talk."

"Carmilla, I'm not sure that's such a--"

But Danny shrugs. "Okay, sure."

She drags the toe of her converse along the line between doorway and hall, edging it over, but then steps inside, claiming the chair over in the corner. 

So they talk. 

It isn't half as painful as she expected. 

* 

It almost feels as though it could become a pattern, but then Danny stops dropping by and it's hard for Carmilla to blame her. 

Laura's sweet, but she's kind of oblivious to the effect she has on people. 

It's cute, but probably not the kind of thing that makes Danny feel better about Laura's hand pushing back Carmilla's hair while she's still in the room. She knows she ought to feel victorious (and okay, maybe a part of her does), but the stricken look on Danny's face is so familiar. 

That's what it feels like to be sent away by Laura Hollis, only to feel yourself dragged right back again. 

She wishes she didn't sympathize, but this is what caring for her human has done to her. 

So many silly, weak emotions. She can hardly keep track of them all.

* 

They see Danny again out on the edge of the track, and Carmilla notices the way Laura is watching her. She feels something twist inside herself and assumes it must be jealousy, though perhaps not. 

Perhaps it's just discomfort at seeing Laura so unhappy. 

(What does she have to be jealous of exactly? She won. She was chosen. Her tiny human holds her very firmly every night and whispers pretty words in her ear that Carmilla is almost loathe to admit wanting more of. Almost.)

"You could go say hi, you know."

She nudges Laura lightly with her shoulder, but there is little reaction, which feels like a bad sign. Laura has a reaction and a (long, rambling) reason for everything. "No," she eventually mumbles, drawing her arms around herself. "She looks… busy."

"Jogging in place?"

Laura nods. "That's her thing, you know. She…"

"Runs around in circles, yeah."

Carmilla thinks to herself that this might actually be a bit of a metaphor for a lot of interactions with Laura, but then immediately regrets even thinking such a thing. Struck by guilt.

She reaches for her little twerp's hand to compensate, threading their fingers together. 

*

But it's more than just the one time. 

Laura is a storyteller. If she'd lived a couple hundred years before, she would have been a traveling bard -- very scandalous for a woman on her own, which she might have liked too -- because she's always happiest talking to a captive audience. 

Before this she had her little project, and now she just curls herself into Carmilla's side with fingers drifting over her collarbone and expects her to be able to concentrate. 

It's almost torturous, and yet it makes her smile. 

But then every time the story turns to something Danny said or did, Laura grows quiet and withdrawn again, staring downward at her hands. Fingers drum against Carmilla's throat and she grows still. 

"And then…?"

Laura starts, as if lost to her own thoughts. She looks Carmilla in the eye again. "… you know what, it doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it?"

She shakes her head, wordlessly, perhaps because she assumes that everything she could think to say is wrong. Quiet, for once.

There was a time when Carmilla might have wished for that. Now it leaves her unsettled. 

* 

It isn't that easy. 

Most things that are wrong in a vampire's life are meant to be fixed with enough blood, drawing life and healing directly from a human, but now that it is the human in need of help, Carmilla is simply at a loss. 

It isn't simple, or easy. It isn't okay.

* 

Laura finally makes another video, and actually expects Carmilla to _talk_ about things, like her feelings or her wants. Her desires and happiness. To give name to things in a way that almost feels dangerous.

Thank god for ancient beings beyond time.

One thing you can say for them is that they have excellent timing. 

* 

When everything is falling apart (literally) and the sky is so bright it almost glows radioactive, they see Danny again, across the distance of the grass.

Instead of looking away, Laura runs toward her, fast and clumsy, almost tripping. 

Danny cuts the distance between them in half in no time at all, hefting Laura in her arms and barely breaking stride. Laura looks ready to protest or complain, but then a piece of building lands close to them and all she says is, "Run!"

So they do.

* 

Carmilla is very, very tired of this heroic vampire crap.

* 

After the world almost ends but doesn't (for a second time), they're all three sitting on the edge of the bed in their motel room, sipping from a shared bottle of whiskey that Danny just used to clean her wounds -- and a few of Laura's, despite her repeated protests that she's "fine, no really," because even after escaping certain doom, she's the type of person who just has to put everyone else ahead of her. 

It's disgusting how endearing it is.

But they shouldn't even be here. Not alive, at least. 

Somehow that makes the whiskey taste even better, although Lawrence is giving her an incredibly skeptical look as Carmilla gulps it down. 

Hell, that kind of improves it too.

"Can you even feel that?"

She takes another sip and considers scowling, but it's harder to force it now that the big one has saved her life. Twice. "You've seen me drink liquids before, I'm sure…" 

Danny blushes and Carmilla wonders if she's thinking about her other diet -- particularly as it relates to Laura -- and can't help but send a glance over at that exposed throat. Just to look. (Which probably doesn't help.)

"No, I mean do you _feel_ it?"

Carmilla smirks. "I'm not drunk yet, if that's what you're asking."

When Danny stands, she sways on her feet, and Carmilla doesn't think it's from the alcohol. She frowns. 

"I could go get more."

"Sit back down, you imbecile." 

Danny does, with almost no objection. "It's not far." She shrugs and tries to stretch the stiffness from her limbs, but doesn't quite get there, grunting instead. "Besides, I think I'll sleep out in the car."

"What?"

Laura looks so alarmed, and it's almost a relief to see her frowning over something other than the alcohol, which she apparently did not approve of immediately following a time of crisis. (Although really, when's a better time exactly?) 

"Well," Danny speaks slowly, indicating the room with a lazy wave of her hand. "There's only the one bed…" 

"Yes, but--" Laura looks over at Carmilla, obviously expecting some sort of backup, like she's meant to anticipate exactly what kind of human impulse is happening now.

She doesn't really. "But…"

"But we couldn't possibly force Danny to sleep out in the car, right?"

Carmilla blinks, truly considering the look on Laura's face and what it might mean. Putting the pieces together slowly. "Of course not."

Danny makes a face and moves to stand again, but this time Laura drags her back down with only a small whimper of protest from the larger woman. 

"That's settled, then." 

* 

Once it's actually time to settle in for the night, Carmilla offers to sleep on the floor, it's not exactly as though she isn't used to it, but Laura puts her foot down again, looking increasingly stern and annoyed. 

"No, you are _both_ going to be in the bed, and so am I. It's not even a big deal, you guys." 

She glares at both of them, and Carmilla can't help but share a bemused glance with Danny. 

* 

Halfway through the night, Carmilla wakes to find herself pressed against the curled line of Danny's spine. She tries to squirm away, but it's difficult. Because Laura is half on top of Carmilla too, mouth close to her ribcage, knees curled up toward her hips, and she grumbles when her vampire starts to shift. 

Fine. 

It's not even that much of an issue, even when Danny shifts almost imperceptibly closer, sighing a soft sigh of contentment. 

It means nothing.

* 

Both Laura and Danny have been up for several hours by the time Carmilla awakens fully, and at first they don't notice her stirring. 

She watches them, silhouettes against the drawn curtains, the light of the sun drawing them in stark contrast as they laugh and joke with one another. Laura puts her hand on Danny's elbow, squeezing, but then stills and pulls away again when she sees the sudden change come over Danny's face.

Carmilla slowly starts to frown. 

* 

(Why didn't she see any of this before? 

She is hundreds of years old and has lived through so many cultural and societal changes, it's amazing to her that it took so long to see the obvious, simple solution.)

* 

The next time Laura is up and heading for the small motel bathroom, Carmilla follows close behind -- producing a startled squeak from Laura and an uncomfortable groan from Danny who obviously assumes they are up to _something_.

Save that for later. 

"You miss Danny," Carmilla says, not even a question really.

"Miss her? She's right--" But the look Carmilla gives her is so disinterested in petty lies that waste both their time that Laura cuts herself off with a sigh. "Fine, yes, she's been… distant." 

"You've refused to speak with her."

"We've _both_ been distant, okay? Fine. But it's… hard."

"Because of us."

Laura looks stricken, like Carmilla has said something incredibly painful and horrible, which wasn't the intention at all. "Carm, no, I really--"

But Carmilla pushes forward, speaking quickly so that she can hopefully overtake and sooth any protests Laura might make, particularly ones that involve stroking her face in a way that makes her blush terribly. They don't have time to get off track. "We don't have to be a problem."

"We _aren't_ a--"

"Because you can have us both."

"…"

For once, Laura is speechless.

Really. 

It's the only time Carmilla's seen her with nothing to say. 

There is barely even her usual range of twitching facial expressions, and no vague hand flailing either.

Just silence.

It takes her a while, and eventually all she manages is, "I'm sorry, what?" 

Carmilla pushes the bathroom door open again, stepping out. "Maybe we should talk about this… together."

"Okay," Laura breathes out, as if she hadn't taken an actual breath in almost a minute.

Maybe she hadn't.

"Okay," she says again, pushing Carmilla back out into the room, and slamming the door abruptly in her face. "But I still have to go pee, givemeaminute, thank you!" 

Carmilla stands there a moment, staring at the wood grain, before turning around slowly to see Danny watching her, curious and a little cautious. 

"Trouble in paradise?" 

Not exactly. Or… maybe. It's hard to know.

"We should wait until she's done," is what Carmilla settles on, hands inside her pockets, elbows stiff and awkwardly pointed outward. 

"Okay, sure." 

* 

It's twenty-three minutes later, and Laura still hasn't come out of the bathroom. 

"Should we be worried?" Danny whispers, hovering close to the door. "I mean… she could have something wrong with her, right, like… physically." 

Carmilla contemplates knocking, but it's obviously pointless. It's not as if Laura doesn't know they're both still here. 

That's probably the point. 

"It's not that," she says.

"What did you _say_ to her?"

Danny pushes her shoulder, which obviously does nothing, but she's already proven she has a flair for dramatic, futile gestures. Whether she forgets her own strength (or relative lack thereof when it comes to Carmilla) or she merely wants to make the point, it's enough to earn her a pointed look. "We should wait."

"But how long?"

* 

Fifty-six minutes, as it turns out.

When she finally opens the door, the other two both abruptly stand at the same time, hovering awkwardly before sitting back on the edge of the bed where they had settled into an uneasy truce. 

Laura's smile is strained, but a little amused. "Wow," she says. "Hey." 

Like maybe she really had forgotten they were both still just outside the door, waiting for her. Like she somehow forgets that they both are simply like that for now. Just hers. Just waiting.

Even if neither of them has quite wanted to admit it. 

"Danny," Laura says in that especially unnatural voice she usually reserves for making announcements to her camera. Her forced calm, like she wants to remind you how professional she is capable of being. "Carmilla has … a crazy idea." 

It's not as extreme as Laura's making it sound, and that's not really a very fair way to preface it. Carmilla stiffens, not really wanting to follow that up (at all), but they're both watching her now. 

So. 

"I think we should share her." 

She's looking at the worn carpeting, just to avoid having to look either of them in the eye.

"… what?" 

It's Danny this time, but with about as much surprise as Laura had originally shown, hands flailing. 

Have these kids never heard of polyamory? It's not as common now, of course, but it was a sign of immense power and wealth in the past, and surely they've read history. 

It's not as if Carmilla _invented_ the idea.

"It's not going to work that way," is what Laura says, pulling herself toward the center of the bed, the axis to their triangle, and this time Carmilla looks up. "You can't just… share me." Danny is already starting to nod, her face slightly slack and uncertain, clinging to this logic that most reasonably aligns with her own understanding of the world. That is, until Laura adds, "We'd really be sharing each other. All of us."

And then Danny is frozen. 

Carmilla is too. She hadn't expected that. Not exactly.

"She is is right, you know, that I like… both of you." Laura straightens her shoulders, very proper and precise when discussing the complications of wanting to make out with two different people. "In different ways, I guess, but you're very different people, so that's to be expected."

"Yeah," Danny starts, "but--"

Laura actually raises a hand to stop her. She seriously just holds up her hand, palm out, and Danny stutters to a stop, because this is the person that Laura Hollis is, apparently, and these are the two idiots who listen to her.

For some reason.

"But if I just have both of you, that isn't really fair. You each get half of me, and I get a whole two of you, and that math-- It's just not fair." Her hands flutter, and Carmilla is reminded of the delicate bones found in her wrist. 

How her pulse feels when they start to hold hands. 

"It isn't fair to _any_ of us, but you two especially, so I think that what's important is if we're going to do this, if we want to try it, it's not just you two sharing me… It's all of us." 

"Okay." Carmilla shrugs, because her mother is dead, Laura chose her (wanted her), and she has nothing left in the entire world to really be afraid of.

It's Danny who looks terrified and uncertain, stiffening when Laura reaches for her face, but then settling into the touch. 

And so she doesn't pull away when their mouths slowly press together, and Carmilla is surprised (even though it was her idea) that she doesn't feel any jealousy whatsoever watching as they kiss. 

If anything, she's impatient, shifting closer. 

"Laura likes it if you use more tongue."

Oh, and that gets a blush from both of them, which is nice too. It feels good and warm, like a belly full of fresh blood. 

Like the heat between her legs when Laura kisses her. 

"Carm," Laura practically purrs, her lips still wet from Danny's kiss, her thumb close to Danny's lips. "I really don't know if we need the _direction_ …" 

Carmilla sulks slightly, but would never admit it openly. "I'm participating." 

She might have said more, but Laura's hand is in her hair suddenly, gentle but insistent, pulling her mouth over to Danny's. Dragging them into a kiss. 

"Okay, so _participate_ …" 

And she does. Her hands cup Danny's face and her fangs graze Danny's lower lip. One thigh is close to Laura's hip and the other shifts as the amazon suddenly pulls until she almost has a handful of vampire in her lap. 

If this is some kind of game for domination, the human has to know she's going to lose, but it's hard to really care. 

"Um…" 

Because Danny is eager in all the ways Carmilla could have expected her to be. So pushy and overbearing, but also athletic and sure-footed, she kisses like you'd expect her to. 

"Guys?"

It certainly says something about how much Laura adores Carmilla that she gave this up so easily, really. 

"Hey, guys, could you--" Laura puts one hand on Carmilla's arm and another somewhere lower on Danny's (freakishly long) torso. "-- I thought maybe… a date first."

Carmilla must be hearing things. "Excuse me?" 

And Danny looks like she's still trying to process any of this at all, slowly blinking. 

"Dating first." 

It's a bad habit, but Carmilla nearly growls. "You don't think that's a little pedestrian, given these circumstances?"

"Don't be condescending," Laura corrects, almost gentle when she slides the hand higher up Carmilla's arm. "And no, wanting to date my girlfriends is _normal_ , I think. Unless being just like everyone else is what you mean by pedestrian, three hundred year old vampire."

It's very nearly the definition of the word, but Laura's thumb is stroking the inside of Carmilla's elbow and she doesn't want to start a fight. 

Unlike Danny, who still looks confused. 

(And rather cute, if we're being honest, with her lips still swollen from kissing.) 

"Don't you think that's a bit _presumptuous_?" Danny sputters. 

"… maybe."

" _Yeah_."

Presumptuous, pedestrian, and pathetic. 

But still true.

*

They end up going on a "date," which is actually just the three of them piling into Danny's car and driving further away from Silas (for now). 

Laura says that they eventually have to go back to check if the entire University fell into the pit underneath the Chapel, but she agrees to give it a few days. In the meantime, there are diners and motels in their future, so it's not exactly anywhere close to what Laura probably meant when she said she wants to date her potential future girlfriends. 

But it's a start. 

"How does this work with three people?" Danny asks, trying to hide the worry from her voice, which is something she's awful at. 

"It's still food, long legs. You just… eat it."

"I meant who pays?"

Laura is very tacitly (maybe tactically) silent. 

"… I can buy," Carmilla says in a low, neutral register. 

The truth is she has plenty of money now that Mamma is dead. Almost too much, really. 

But they don't talk about that. 

They talk about the weather and every other stupid thing that they can think of, all so that they can avoid whatever they're worried might be waiting for them back home. Assuming the campus still qualifies as home to any of them. 

It's hard to know. 

*

Their next date that really isn't apparently requires dragging Carmilla out of bed when the sun is still high, and she grumbles the entire time about the obvious fact that a balanced relationship would take _every_ member into account. Their temperament too. 

Like for example, if one of them were especially light averse. 

Something like that.

"Here I always thought you were just allergic to work."

"Danny…" 

"Don't mistake my time with you for my normal attitude. You _are_ hard work to tolerate, but don't let that reflect on anything else."

"You guys…"

Laura sighs, and they both smile, exchanging a glance above her head. 

*

The sunset is beautiful, but the bottle of wine makes it better. 

"Don't get too excited," Laura cautions as Danny pops the cork. "I'm not sure it's a good year."

Carmilla checks the label. "… it's _last_ year."

"Right, exactly."

Danny shrugs and drinks straight from the bottle. When Carmilla sneers with disgust, she grins, wiping her mouth with the heel of her hand. "As if you bother to poor all _your_ drinks into cups…" 

She has a point, and whatever other smart remark Carmilla had intended to make dies out when Laura takes them both by the hand, kissing each of their knuckles one at a time. 

"You two are very good dates."

"It's sweet of you to say so," Danny drawls, taking another sip before she pours for both of them. 

Laura first, of course.


	6. And I Win

*

So having two girlfriends is kind of weird. Not bad! Just… weird. 

Nothing Laura has ever consumed across any media (and there has been a lot) has prepared her for this. It's an emotional roller coaster of expectation and, she's learning, desire. 

That part isn't bad at all.

*

It takes them a while to get to the sex the first time, mostly at Laura's insistence -- understandably, she thinks, given how long it takes to return safely to Silas -- but she thinks the two of them will appreciate it later. 

Actually, she _knows_ they will, because good god are they both horny. 

It turns out that denying someone sex for long enough (but still making out with them occasionally) makes them very, very horny once you finally go for it. Okay, sure, Laura's overall experience is a little bit limited, but she's sticking by this hypothesis until proven otherwise.

Because Carmilla is still kind of tender and sweet -- gentle in this way where it's like she's worried she might hurt Laura just by wanting her badly enough -- but now she's hungry too. 

She growls.

(It shouldn't be as hot as it is, but it is _very_ hot.)

And Danny is competitive, you know, so she just sort of dives in too. No hesitation. 

Lots of eager mouths.

*

With Danny between her legs and Carmilla's breasts at her back, Laura makes lots of mental notes. 

She kind of wishes she had a pen and paper, actually, because she's having _so many_ good ideas, and they're completely wasted, because her mind is suddenly (totally) blank again, so there goes that.

It was something about Danny's long back and how it looks twisted up with effort, shoulders bunching and flexing.

Something.

* 

But really, it's not just the sex. 

Like how even if Danny is busy with Summer Society things -- she always texts first if she's expected back late -- Carmilla is there to cuddle up with. When Carmilla is napping all day (not like she has much of a choice), Danny is there for company and occasional kisses. Plus, the two of them are working _very_ hard to make amends. 

You know, for the whole choking and also nearly staking each other thing. 

It's a work in progress. 

* 

"Are either of you going to help me?" 

Danny is moving the furniture around the room that used to belong to just Laura and Carmilla -- okay, technically according to the University it still does, but they also thought the Dean was a qualified educator, so who really cares what they think -- and she's starting to look a little frustrated. 

"I thought I was supervising…" 

Laura trails off from a particularly pointed look from Danny who stands up straighter (slowly), blowing hair out of her face. "Is that code for not actually doing any work?"

"I just don't want to help," Carmilla volunteers from her place on the bed that they're going to actually be moving in a moment. 

"Points for honesty, at least."

She gives Danny a thumbs up and keeps reading. 

This is not really working in Laura's favor, and since it was kind of her idea to turn the room into something more befitting all three of them, she should probably start moving things, too. Like this lamp! She moves that easily enough. 

And one corner of the rug. 

Helping!

* 

Carmilla eventually gets up from the bed once Danny attempts to flip over the mattress (with her still on it). 

Laura decides it's best not to intervene, since that might mean having to move the bed herself. 

It's like five times her size. 

*

Not that she always leaves those two to their own devices. Left on their own, they'd never learn to get along properly. 

Like a cat and… someone who hates cats. 

Or is allergic to them.

Just like that!

*

(Actually, tragically, Danny _is_ allergic to cats, which Laura and Carmilla only discovered after a long afternoon power nap with one of them as a giant panther thing that apparently left enough cat hair on the pillow for Danny to still be sneezing three days later. Oops.)

*

So of course it's Laura's idea that the other two should have a date night all their own. 

Carmilla pouts. (For a very old vampire, she pouts kind of often.)

"What happened to everybody sharing equally?" 

"Well, both of you have had a lot of time alone with me, but not so much with each other. This actually is equal."

They don't seem to really agree with Laura's assessment -- or her definition of "equality" -- but they've also sort of learned that she's very good at arguing about the same thing for an incredibly long time until she gets her way. It would actually take them less time to just go on their date than it would to argue with her, so they do the reasonable thing and let her have her way up front.

She's really sort of proud.

*

They both dress super casually. The words "it's no big deal" and "we're already dating anyway, right?" are said a handful of times, and Laura can't help but notice that neither of them applies makeup. (Other than the eyeliner that Carmilla practically sleeps in.) 

But then Carmilla offers Danny her jacket on their way out the door. 

Admittedly, vampires probably don't get very cold, so maybe it's not that gallant, but Laura still has to work extra hard to stifle an incredibly pronounced "aww" at just the sight -- because apparently she's not allowed to "commentate" on any part of their date.

That doesn't mean she can't observe it stealthily from a distance.

*

Danny and Carmilla's first ever official solo date -- if two people together can qualify as solo, but given their specific circumstances it sort of does -- is a trip to the carnival. Laura's idea, of course.

Otherwise they might have settled for something boring and dumb like a movie, and it would've been almost impossible for Laura to spy on them then.

As it is, she thinks she's doing a pretty amazing job, creeping along in the bushes at the edge of the fairgrounds. 

It's a good thing her dad bought her binoculars that she convinced him would be for bird watching, and nothing remotely illegal or unethical. (The truth is that Laura has been using them to try to spy into the faculty lounge on occasion to get a peak at her end of semester grades. Total rebel.) 

Of course, even binoculars are only useful when her incredibly (but adorably) gigantic girlfriend isn't standing directly in front of the much shorter one.

It's cute and everything, but the details are impossible to make out. 

Are they smiling? Fighting? Kissing?

It sort of looks like Carmilla's hand is up under Danny's shirt, and that's ... probably not right.

No way.

*

It's sort of exhausting keeping up with them all night. 

The sacrifices that Laura makes, honestly.

She might have invited LaFontaine, since they're the only person who seems genuinely happy for the three of them, actually excited about the news. 

They gave Laura a high five and called her a stud. 

No one has ever called her a stud before, not ever, not even ironically. 

So yes, they would have been the appropriate candidate for participating in plan My Girlfriends Need to Make Out More, except according to Carmilla the only person on the entire planet less stealthy than LaFontaine was Perry.

("That one thought I couldn't see her in the bushes. These idiots all know their hair is red, don't they? It certainly isn't _green_.")

Touché or whatever.

*

Carmilla and Danny aren't arguing as much as she honestly expected them to. In fact, they've been grinning a lot. 

Danny wins a small teddybear (black, of course) at the ball toss, and Carmilla doesn't immediately throw it away. She tucks it under her arm instead, so that they can walk together holding hands. 

Holding hands! 

Wow. Laura could almost squeal. Maybe she does (a little), but nobody's close enough to hear. She's pretty sure.

Still. 

The night is early, and there's plenty of time for the two of them to turn on each other like they kind of inevitably do. 

Best to keep a watchful eye on them.

*

Spying on people is really, really dull. No wonder LaFontaine was bad at it. 

How do you even force yourself to focus when you can't really see what they're saying? Or doing. The two of them are far enough away now that they're just two specks -- a tall speck and a short, surly speck -- and the point is that Laura really can't stick to the edges anymore. 

She'll have to infiltrate the carnival herself. 

For totally scientific, data collection purposes, of course.

* 

Not that there's any harm in sampling some of the treats for sale.

It'll give her a better idea of what their date is really like! Like embedded journalism. 

But then while Laura is momentarily distracted by the nice gentleman selling cotton candy -- who tells her she looks cute which, admittedly, she really does in this zip-up hoodie -- when she looks again, Danny is standing there alone. 

She knew it! Carmilla apparently decided to just _bail_ , in the middle of their date. 

The nerve. 

Laura is going to have to give her a talking to, and--

Except, oh, Laura would recognize those giant kitty jowls tugging at her (really cute, careful Carm) hoodie anywhere. 

Oops. 

"… oh."

Laura turns, and there's Carmilla, human again, but smirking and looking self-satisfied in her especially cat-like way. 

"Hey there, cutie." Laura blushes, despite herself. "What happened to just Danny and I? Get lonely?" 

"Um, if I say yes, what are the odds that you'll believe me?"

"Well, I'm not majoring in statistics this time, but I still don't really think they're in your favor."

"… right."

* 

Apparently the teddybear was actually for her (that makes a lot more sense). 

"We think it kind of looks like you." 

Laura makes a face and frowns down at the bear. "No, it doesn't!" 

"Definitely." Danny smooches its nose a little. "See? That's your nose, for sure."

"Plus it's about your size…" 

And now the face Laura's making is directed at Carmilla. " _You_ are about my size, too."

"Danny says I should make height jokes a bit more equally." The vampire shrugs, and when she smirks, there are pointed teeth showing. "She's probably right."

*

Laura decides to sit between them on the ferris wheel, since they've obviously had plenty of time to bond tonight if they're going to start ganging up on her.

It's the only thing they seem to agree on with consistency. 

*

(Well, that and the value of good communication during sex. That had taken some time, but Laura eventually convinced them that the more she knows about what they want, the better off everyone will be. 

It eventually resulted in detailed lists of "do's" and "really really do _not_ 's," complete with a ranking system.

She's pretty proud of it, honestly. There might be a color-coded chart.)

*

They get another cone of cotton candy, each taking turns biting from the same side. 

"No fair, Dracula, your bites are way too big."

"What, like you can't compensate for it with the sheer size of your _face_?"

Now that's more like it.

There's something reassuring about the normalcy of their bickering, honestly. 

"Come on, guys," Laura drawls in her usual, scolding tone that shuts them both up long enough to take her hand. "You want to try the haunted house?"

Carmilla rolls her eyes so broadly, with such obvious distaste, that Danny laughs and agrees without hesitation. 

Some things change slower than others.

*

It's obviously Laura's job to keep speeding things along, though. 

Because she cares about both of her girls (very, _very_ much), and it's almost overwhelming sometimes, feeling how much they both genuinely care about her in return. She thinks they both deserve that, too. 

That much care and affection from two people at the same time. 

Another good step toward getting there is probably gift giving. Laura always likes gifts!

Who doesn't like gifts? And who doesn't like a person more _after_ you've received something from them? It's common sense, really. 

All it takes is a little minor subterfuge, and roughly fifty attempts at forging Carmilla's signature. (Danny's is fairly modern, curved and vivid, much closer to Laura's own. Carmilla writes with such a practiced flair, you'd almost think she's been writing things down in cursive for a couple hundred years.) 

Anyway.

The plan is basically foolproof, except for the part where they share a room together (most of the time), and Laura can't think of a valid excuse to disappear suddenly from the room when both girls notice their presents. 

Instead, she pretends to be reading. 

Her very fascinating anthropology textbook that she is obviously, attentively reading. About ancient cultures or whatever, their strange mating customs. Like how sometimes someone will do a lot of posturing to attract a potential mate, even when it's obvious that it's mostly an act and they actually already like each other and should probably stop bickering all the time and make out more instead. 

The book definitely says something like that.

"Umm." Danny is still standing in the doorway, looking slightly confused and taken aback by the incredibly sharp war axe in her hand. "Thank you… Carmilla." She hefts it a little. "I'm kind of surprised, actually. You usually seem to hate when I bring weapons--" 

Except that Carm was, of course, lost inside a book herself (possibly paying more attention than Laura, actually), and it takes her a moment to look up when Danny speaks. But as soon as she does (when she sees the metal glinting), she lets out a sort of undignified, startled shout. 

The kind of noise she would never admit to at all, since obviously vampires don't scream over anything.

" _God_ , Danny, can't you put that away!" 

"… your gift?" 

Carmilla scowls so darkly that Laura can see it vividly even from the corner of her eye. (Because her eyes are focused on her book, she is studying, they should really just leave her alone to study, it'd be the responsible girlfriendly thing to do.) "Why would you get me something so barbaric? Do I look like I want to go around lopping heads off?"

"Well… yes, actually." Danny sets the axe down on the dresser and Laura makes note of the way Carmilla's eyes track its movement. "But I meant the gift you got me." A beat. "You didn't buy me this, did you?"

"Oh, thank _god_ ," Carmilla groans, tossing back the covers of her bed to reveal something small, black, and incredibly lacy that might have been on sale at the shopping center just the other day. "I suppose this isn't from you then either, hm?"

Maybe it looked like the perfect size. 

Not that Laura would _know_ since her eyes haven't left this page about Egypt or wherever. Not once. 

For roughly five minutes, her eyes have been stuck to the very same sentence. 

"Laura…" 

"Sorry, hm, I'm busy reading this…" This chapter is about sex. Laura has been staring at it for ten minutes and she only just realizes that it's an entire chapter about sex. In Egypt. Her eyes jerk up at last, because she's pretty sure she cannot use any of the details she just skimmed past to cover for her. 

It would probably only make things worse. 

"Did you guys need--"

"I'm just curious about your size," Carmilla says, so matter-of-fact that it's slightly terrifying. 

They've figured it out, right? They just seemed to, and so … Laura would have honestly expected a bit more anger. A stern talking to, or a couple questions.

At the very least, some _questions_. 

Other than the one Carmilla just asked, which doesn't really make any sense. "My what now?" 

"Oh, you know, for the sword I'm going to buy you." Carmilla nearly yawns, so very casual. "What size would you like?"

"… I'm sorry, what--"

"To go along with the axe I bought Danny." A beat. "Oh, that's right, you don't know. Laura, I bought Danny an axe."

Laura glances between the two of them quickly. Obviously this is… something. She's not sure what exactly, but it's her job to act surprised and neutral. "Oh?" 

Nailed it.

"It suits her so well, I thought I might as well get you a matching piece of weaponry. You know how much I like deadly pointy things around." 

Laura looks over at Danny, who (instead of jumping in to help) apparently takes it as her cue to pile on. "I just want to know your bust size, actually, so I can buy you matching lingerie." 

"Okay, you guys…." Laura is blushing so red, her cheeks so genuinely flushed and warm, that she's probably hot to the touch. She's sure of it. "You win, okay? I get it." 

"Cupcake, I'm pretty sure you're the one who's winning."

Danny nods. "Two presents from two great girls."

"Maybe _you_ should buy the two of us something," Carmilla gasps, as though it's a revelation. "Spend some of your money on your two favorite girls, how would that be?"

Oh, they're good. 

They're very, very good.

* 

(This plan doesn't actually backfire as completely as it could have. 

At least they get a few different lingerie options out of it.)

*

After that, it's all subtle attempts. 

Low-key things. 

Like making her and Carmilla matching t-shirts (with Danny's face on them, of course) to wear to Danny's big track event thing, while they both cheer her on from the stands. 

Except then Carm insists that she stained hers with grape soda and had to go with basic black instead. 

But they both cheer, louder than almost anyone else (not that track and field is the kind of sport to get a crowd pumped normally), and Laura catches Carmilla staring extra long when Danny jogs over to grab her bottle of water and pours some of it over her head. 

That's something to jot down for later.

*

Whenever possible, Laura finds excuses to leave them home alone. 

"Oh, sorry," she gasps into her cellphone. "I'm going to be stuck here at the library until _just_ before sundown, you two should have an early dinner without me."

Except then of course they both show up with a tupperware of food (and a bat, just in case). 

Nothing attacks or skitters too loudly (for once) while they sit there holding hands beneath the table, trying their hardest not to giggle or tease.

It lasts roughly five minutes before Carmilla and Danny start nudging each other's feet. 

* 

All this and still things feel like they're progressing slowly. 

The two of them have gotten really good at communicating their wants and desires when they're all already in bed together, but what about the quiet moments between them?

Except that really, those don't even exist, because they're always too busy bickering to stop long enough to remember their mouths have _better_ uses. (No, but really. Their mouths are very, very good, and it's almost a travesty they don't find better use more consistently.) 

Laura is in the middle of devising yet another (brilliant) plan to force them to get along -- and maybe a couple other uses for those mouths -- when she comes back to the room…

Only to discover Carmilla and Danny going at it on the bed.

Or at least, their mouths are. (And hands. There's a lot of hands too.)

"… what!" 

That's all she's got, and it's barely a sentence.

(Technically _not_ a sentence.)

"Oh," Danny gasps, also not quite a sentence, but closer. It qualifies, sort of. "Hey… Laura." 

Carmilla just blinks, that sort of dazed expression settling on her face that she gets every time they have sex and it's like she's not sure whether or not she's awake or dreaming. The sleepy satisfaction that makes her blink slower, smile gently.

Her lips are kind of swollen, and Laura is exasperated by her own confused emotions. "Since when do you two make out without me!" 

Oh shoot, did she just say that out loud?

She must have, judging by both their smirks. (They are _smirking_ at her, which isn't very good girlfriend behavior.) 

"Um, yeah, Laura, we've been working on that whole equality thing you were so excited about." 

Carmilla nods in slow agreement with Danny, her expression very much the cat that got the canary. Or the tall redhead. Whatever.

"This isn't equal." Laura says, much louder than she means to. "I'm not getting any kisses!" 

This time Carmilla even laughs. Laughs! 

"Ohhh, come on," Danny says, barely disguising the chuckle in her voice too. "Laura, you and I have definitely made out without Carm around once or twice…"

Since when does Danny call her _Carm_ , when did all of this start happening, has she slipped through a worm hole and come out a year later -- actually, it is Silas, that's a possibility -- but the point is! "… Carm?"

"Mmhm?" 

"No, Danny just _called you_ Carm." The two of them exchange an amused glance, and that's not helping. Not at all! All Laura really wants is to regain some idea (just a little bit) of what's going on. 

Is that so much to ask?

"Sweetie, look, we think it's super cute and all that you've been so…"

"Invested."

"Right, _invested_ in the two of us--"

"--not killing each other--

"--exactly. But the truth is Danny and I have already bonded over a couple things, and we're… you know, we're good."

Really. Just like that. 

That doesn't even make sense.

Laura frowns. "What kind of things?"

Danny chokes on a laugh and nudges Carmilla with her shoulder, ducking to hide her face behind her hair. 

"Um."

Now Carmilla is almost laughing too, and it sort of leaves Laura wanting to stomp her feet. " _Well_?"

"Well… like how you drive us crazy sometimes." 

"What, I do not!" Laura is waving her arms around and raising her voice, not exactly making a great case for how much she could not possibly ever drive anyone crazy. "… since when?"

"Since always," Danny laughs again, resting her chin on Carmilla's shoulder. "But we like you anyway, weirdo."

"Exactly." 

Laura narrows her eyes, suspicious and… actually kind of offended, but probably not as much as she ought to be. Because, yeah. It's true. They like her anyway. And she's their weirdo (both of them), so at the end of the day, it's kind of nice. "That's almost sweet."

Carmilla sighs as Danny looks slightly triumphant. "Yeah, we… talked about that too." 

"I win." Danny smugs and lifts her head again, doing a small shimmy on the bed, swaying to some imaginary rhythm until Carmilla rolls her eyes and apparently decides to stop her through the forceful (repeated) application of her mouth. At first, it's almost a fight (again), like they're really invested in deciding who comes out on top, but eventually Danny just concedes, sinking back into the mattress, her fingers curling in Carmilla's hair. 

"Okay," Danny pants, her eyes still bright and sharp like a challenge, "maybe you win this time." 

"Maybe?" 

Carmilla sounds affronted, ready to argue, but it sort of disappears inside a purr -- she really needs to come to terms and admit just how _often_ she makes those kind of noises -- once Laura leans in to kiss along her shoulder up to her neck. 

Maybe they all win.

**Author's Note:**

> This wouldn't have been possible without the help of friends who I pestered a lot and cannot currently name for obvious, Yuletide reasons. But know that I really, really would not have finished without you! You're the best. :)
> 
> Title taken from "Venice" by The Lighthouse and the Whaler.


End file.
